Strat's Idea Emporium (Interest Check)

Hello there.

You might recognize me as Stratofarius. I've been playing in this forum for around four years and I've G Med my fair share of R Ps. Most of you might know me from a long, three-year stint G Ming the RPG forum mainstay 'A Game of Gods'. Now I have a lot of free time and want to do some of the R Ps I've been writing down in my idea notebook.

Problem: I have a lot of ideas. Which ones will the players want to do? Instead of doing one by one- like before- I've decided to put here all of my RP ideas to see which ones you guys like. We have originals, crossovers, scrapped challenges expanded into R Ps, so much stuff. Let's get into it.

• To Boldly Go Reboot: A while ago, a great R Per called Big Bean made a crossover RP where we all signed up as AU versions of existing characters. These AU versions were all part of a crew of a Star Trek-like ship. It was fresh, exciting, and a lot of interesting ideas came out of it, but it unfortunately stalled and crawled to a slow death. I've always wanted to revisit this idea, this time with a twist. The reboot would take place in a world split into an Empire and Rebels, and players could sign up as a crew of an Empire ship or as members of the just formed Rebel Alliance. Of course, the Empire is not as evil as it seems, and the Rebels are not as good as they say they are. Players would be able to sign up as crew members, long-standing rebel alliance members, pirates, bounty hunters, etc.

• Mad Max - Crossover Road: An idea that came to me whilst watching the great Mad Max Fury Road. Originally an AGOG Season 3 challenge idea. Basically, the players could sign up as any character with a vehicle, and they would be involved in an action-filled chase across various scenarios, trying to get a very valuable object. That's the rough idea, at least.

• Penny Dreadful Crossover: Inspired by the Showtime show, players would sign up as victorian versions of existing characters and form an alliance against various monsters from penny dreadful and pulp stories- except it would be versions of those monsters from other existing pieces of fiction, eg: instead of just vampires, it'd be vampires from a famous movie/show/anything with vampires.

• Si Vis Votum Reboot: One of my failed R Ps. Players sign up as AU versions of characters and have to travel the multiverse accomplishing missions. Needs to be reworked into more than just an AGOG clone.

• Renascibilitas: Like before, a reboot of one of my failed R Ps. Players sign up as original characters that find out they are reincarnations of fictional characters and slowly uncover their hidden abilities in a world that may (or may not) know about them.

• Contest of Champions: Scrapped AGOG S3 challenge. Reworked into a RP where players sign up as squads of four characters united by one theme (don't have to be characters in the same universe) and have to compete in a multiversal tournament for a prize. Characters may be swayed (or forced) to switch between groups, lots of drama, stuff like that.

• Chrononauts Time Travel Agency: Inspired by the Chrononauts comic. Players sign up as the newest members of Chrononauts, chosen to be part of the first journey through time. Of course, the characters may have ulterior motives as to why they'd want to travel through time... hijinks ensue.

• Crossover Secret Agency: Imagine you're a fictional character. And then you die. Every powerful character, once they die, gets an offer from a voice. A voice that represents an agency. An agency that is interested in said character's work. The offer is simple: work for us and you get to live. Don't work for us and death is yours. Many accept the offer and get inducted into the agency, a place of complete secrecy... a place which controls the entire multiverse subvertly. Think 'the hand of the author' given physical manifestation. A normal member of the agency has destroyed civilizations, killed heroes, created villains, and other horrible things at least once. Because the agency claims they are simply protecting the natural strand of the universe. Of course, there's a bad guy. But is the bad guy really that bad? Is the agency protecting people or stripping them of their free will? Who is killing off agents?And of course, there's the fact they are sworn to complete secrecy. No one can know who or what the agency is. If an agent slips, his or her family joins him or her in the afterlife- if he or she believes in one.

• After the Crossover: Characters from all over the multiverse get drafted together and sent on multiple missions across worlds to stop some grand evil being... well, at least that's what happened years ago.Now it's the present. These multiversal heroes settled down and created a new city in the center of the multiverse, the Nexus. Which has people and places from all over the multiverse. This RP is about what happens after victory. Will the heroes settle down and become protectors of this new city? Change sides and go against what they once stood? Who knows.

• Mix a Character and Setting RP: Based on these fanarts I found. They revolve around franchise remix. Or to be more precise: character from franchise X as if he existed on world of franchise Y. So you've got Sith Lord Ganondorf or Tron Warrior Link or Alice- from Alice in Wonderland- mixed with Kill la Kill. So that's the idea of the crossover RP. Do something like that.

• Laff-A-Lympics RP: First of all: the Laff-A-Lympics. What I've got in mind for this one is that players draft up a team of four characters who'll compete in the 'Multiversal Olympics'. Each character is supposed to resemble one of the four pillars of the Olympics: mind, body, soul and... I don't know the other one- just an idea. Anyway, that's the general gist of it. Each player controls X amount of characters, Olympic games, backstage squabbles... Based on this, although you guys probably already know that. Probably have a Wacky Races in there too.

• Movie Studio RP: Something along the line of 'The Movies' game. Each player controls a movie studio and have to deal with different areas- R&D, directors, screenwriters, etc. We go month by month as you have to drive up profit and creativity. As the GM, I'd be playing the trade papers, reporting new screenwriters, world events that affect which movies people want, what each of your areas created, etc, but in the end it'd be up to you whether to greenlight a movie, close off production, etc. Start in the 30's and go on from there.

• Secret Agencies RP: A Civilization-like RP, except with secret agencies, like the FBI and the KGB.

• Fictional Civilization RP: A Civilization-like RP, but with fictional civilizations.

• Battle of the Bands: Based on an AGOG AU I came up with. Basically a crossover RP where the characters are artists living in a Los Angeles-like city. You've got bands, filmmakers, writers, etc, all trying to make their fill and live in the big city. I guess the best comparison would be 'imagine a TV drama with a crossover element and a huge focus on the entertainment world'.
  • Or it can just straight up be a 'battle of the bands' crossover RP.

• Full Metal Alchemist Sequel: I found the documents with the ideas for a RP that takes place after FMA: Brotherhood and I'd like to try and move these forward. It has a very Cold War feel that could work.

• Beacon City Reboot: Another failed RP. Crossover where the characters are reimagined in the context of a superhero universe. Could lead to some cool ideas.

• Real-Time Superhero RP:Let me explain. In the beginning of the Marvel universe, everything was real-time. The Fantastic Four began in 1964, they aged, they reacted to real-life events, that kind of stuff. This gave the comic a real sense of... time and gravitas, one might say. I wanna do that in an RP. A game that starts in 2015, moves real-time with real-life, and is chronicling the beginning of a superhero universe. I'm even gonna come up with an origin story for all these superpowers that'll match what's going on in RL. And to keep things organized, I'll start with X-Men-like genetic deviants before moving on to accept mythology creatures, aliens, that kind of stuff. Really take my time. Develop this universe with original ideas. And since its a new superhero universe, where powers weren't a thing up until today... well, a blank slate to let the imagination go free.

• Movies Come Alive: Listen, I'm gonna get real with you. I have no idea what this one means. I just wrote it in my notebook and underlined it seven times. I do not know why, but I don't just underline things for no reason. If I ever remember what the idea here is, I'll get back to you guys.

• Ghostbusters: Tried to launch this one, but, let's try again. First one, a Ghostbusters RP. Small crowd. 4-6 players maximum. Takes place after the second movie, around end of the 80's, start of the 90's. Ghostbusters opening up a franchise, players RP as the new hires. Plan of the RP is to take place over decades as the Ghostbusters franchise develops. When dealing with NP Cs, I'll 'cast' certain actors of each time (early 90's, mid 90's, bla bla) as the NP Cs. Objective: create strong connection between the four players as their characters go from new hires to the oldest workers on the Ghostbusters. Of course, they might get fired, replaced, killed, they might leave to start their own busting companies, stuff like that.

• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1988: You know the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Okay, this idea is that but for the 1980s. Any kind of 80s fiction, really. I'm imagining Doc Brown and Kurt Russel and Mario. Stuff like that. 1980s characters against 1980s problems. Like the Ghostbusters idea, eventually develops into the 1990s League. And then the 2000s League. On and on, with flashback to a 1960s League, like its an organization that has existed for a loooong time.

• Console Wars: So my Console Wars idea draws a lot from that feudalism shit. You sign up as a game company, and each game company is like a fief lord or some stuff like that. So, say, for example, there's Nintendo. You don't sign up as a personification of Nintendo. You're in the land of Nintendo, and in that land, you've got people serving under you. Game companies which develop exclusively for you. The story starts when the Atari kingdom, which reigned supreme, breaks apart. I'm going for a serious with dashes of comedic in here because, come on, it's a console war. So, basically, a normal anime. Okay. Atari falls apart. The world dives into a Middle Ages-like era. There's several fiefs, but the biggest two are Sega and Nintendo. The RP will follow the timeline of the real world, beginning in 1985-ish. But this real history stuff is gonna tie into two things: that way we can slowly allow more companies in (as they appear in 'the real world') and the technology can evolve just like it has in the real world. Of course, we won't follow the company's history. This is just to keep someone from, say, signing up as Bungie in the 8-bit era. Keep a sort of technological similarity between the companies, and this ties into mechanics I'm gonna tell you about now.
  • Right, you wanna sign up with Capcom- or, in this case, the land of Capcom. First, you tell me about the land, the people and the culture of Capcom, drawing from the usual traits of the company during this era. So, say, if Capcom did only futuristic games, then the people of Capcom are obsessed with technology and the future. Then, we move onto 'the Lords'. You'll take Capcom's biggest franchises and adapt them into characters. For example, the Mega Man franchise up until the 16-bit era. Here's the key: you cannot give me a character from the franchise. I don't want Mega Man, or Roll, or Dr. Light. I want you to adapt the characteristics of the Mega Man franchise into a character. And keep in mind the 8-bit era in this universe is supposed to reflect the Middle Ages.
  • I need to explain how I'm approaching the idea of eras. Notice how I said that the 8-bit era (NES, Master System) is like the Middle Ages in Europe/Japan. So you sign up as Capcom. You adapt the Mega Man franchise up until the SNES into a character called... Megs. I'm not a creative man. Megs is the biggest Lord of the land of Capcom. We RP several wars. Nintendo vs Sega vs other console-making companies At the same time, each land has a R&D team working. These teams will be working on upgrades for their soldiers, supposed to resemble the upgrades consoles and games went through on the transition from the NES to the SNES. Better graphics in the real world = better armor in the RP world. And this means shit like failed peripherals and bad attempts at creating tech like online can show up in R&D too. It's basically the side of the war that's working on making better weapons. But instead of coming up with new shit, you come up with shit based on what came after in videogame history. You don't need to replicate it tit for tat. All you need is to take inspiration from that.
  • Right, okay. As Nintendo is the fief lord to which Capcom is subservient to, all developments Capcom comes up with should go to Nintendo. Holy shit! Breakthrough! The Nintendo R&D teams came up with something amazing. 16-bit graphics. This is a new era in the battlefield- and for the world. Bada-bing. We go from the Middle Ages to the Reinassance. Every generation of videogames is supposed to resemble an era of human history. Remember the Atari kingdom that fell apart? That was antiquity. Similar to the Roman Empire. Pong was pre-history, Atari was antiquity, Nintendo and Sega showing up in the field are the Middle Ages. SNES is Reinassance, PS 1 is 1800s-1900s (new technologies show up like the CD, new empires show up like Sony). Game Cube/XBOX is the Cold War, PS 3/Wii/Xbox 360 is the 21st Century, PS 4/Wii U/Xbox One is the future. Of course, it's highly possible, say, the Sega empire sticks around. Or the Sony empire gets squashed before it can become a huge player.
  • The key here is that the RP is divided in two sections: you've got your Lords interacting amongst one another, forming dynasties, creating alliances, leading armies into battles, and you've got your macro-management, researching new weapons, shit like that. Also, when I say forming dynasties, I imagine the Lords that represent Metroid and Castlevania get together and their son/daughter is a Metroidvania game. I equate the birth of the first person shooter to be like World War I in this universe. Because it's a whole new era of war.

• Workcom RP: A crossover RP that takes place in a sitcom world a la 'The Office', 'Parks and Recreation' and '30 Rock'.

• Superheroes vs Real People: You know how we're gonna have a shitload of superhero stuff in media on the upcoming years? What if, stick with me on this one. What if all that superhero shit accidentally ripped open a hole in space and time to a dimension where superheroes exist? And as it turns out, we've been dictating their lives for the past 100 years. There's people who lost their families because they needed an 'origin story'. People suffering from crippling mental problems because they're not sure what their history is thanks to all the retcons. Let's not even talk about Jason Todd, who got killed by -popular vote-. And they're royally pissed at us. Like, 'we're going to dictate your lives now' pissed. And by dictate, they mean fuck everything up and rule over whoever survives. So whilst most people are like 'see see I knew comic books were horrible and awful and bla bla bla', the story would focus on a resistance cell made up of, you guessed it, comics fans. But to represent the diversity in the history of comics and comics fans, they never get to do anything because they don't know what to base their actions on. So some guy is going off Dark Age standards, where everything was rape and violence, but some dude believes there's an inner sense to do good in these superheroes, a la Golden Age. And the major arc would be them eventually developing into a hero group, with each member of the group representing an era of comics, and showing that it only works when they all come together and stuff like that. I see it as a sort of action-drama-comedy hybrid? In other words, a superhero story. But it wouldn't be one big masturbatory dissertation on 'the value of comics' that ends with a big speech about why comics rock because that's extremely relative and I don't love stuff like that. If anything, the story is more about how comics helped this group of people turn into a group of friends who are going to give the people of this world some hope. I kinda see it as a 13-episode TV show of some sorts. Of course, because the theme is... kinda metafictional- a superhero story about a bunch of people becoming superheroes to fight superheroes from superhero comics- there'd be a lot of playing with the tropes, the history and the characters of the genre.

If you've got an idea that interests you, sound off. I'm trying to start a RP everyone will enjoy.

edited 29th Jul '15 7:07:18 AM by Stratofarius

Right off the bat, I gotta say I love the sound of To Boldly Go, Mix a Character and Setting and Console Wars, and I really like the idea of Movie Studio, Battle of the Bands and Superheroes vs Real People.

Man you weren't kidding about having a lot of ideas. The ones I like most would have to be the Crossover Secret Agency, Beacon City Reboot, Battle of the Bands (first version), and Mix Character and Setting RP.

Crossover Secret Agency looks like the tits.

There's a lot of good sounding ideas here. I'm honestly not sure what one I would like to pick out of the bunch, but there's a lot of potential here.

To Boldly Go was fun, and ended too soon. I'd consider reusing the same character for that one.

Battle of the Bands: fuck yeah. I thought that should have been made into a spinoff as soon as you suggested it.

Getting real pumped over here about Mixing Character and Setting. Besides that, Mad Max, To Boldly Go, and maybe Beacon City.

The most interesting to me is the Beacon City reboot, and I already have been brainstorming what elements from DC and Marvel to throw in and leave out as well as a probable list of recommendation characters! Plus, for the Beacon City one, there should be a restriction stating NO ONE be allowed to sign-up as someone from a DC and/or Marvel character. Comic characters in general are fine, as well as superheroes in general, just not from DC and/or Marvel (ie can sign up as Baymax from the Disney movie, but not Baymax from the comic).

For the Mad Max on, preemptive dibs on Sweet Tooth.

My votes would have to be for To Boldly Go and Si Vis Votum. Those were the bee's knees.

They are all good, but I personality like After The Crossover and the Beacon City Reboot.

To Boldly Go seems like fun, especially since it sounds like the reboot would have a Star Wars angle, which I can dig.

I also really like the Crossover Secret Agency because mystery.

Si Vis Votum reminded me of the first RP I did a long time ago, except that it involves characters who were normal and who could die at any moment.

While the Secret Agencies idea is interesting, I do remember the failed Beacon City RP that you did. Very interesting too.

Alright, I'm throwing my vote behind Secret Agencies. Not the only one I'm interested in, but the one that interests me the most.

Wow. That is a lot you wrote in your idea notebook. Leaning in favor of the Crossover Secret Agency, but I actually find many of them quite interesting.

Mix Character!

Battle of the Bands and Work Com sound cool, but I have no idea how you would actually go about executing those concepts in an RP format.

I had an idea for the original To Boldly Go, but the thread died beforehand. :/

There's a lot of fun ass ideas here. I think the best ones are the Mad Max one, the After the Crossover one, the Contest of Champions and the Secret Agency. I look forward to which ones make the cut. :)

To Boldly Go and Mix a Character stand out to me.

80's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

These are almost all very cool ideas. I'm not too fond of R Ps with limited character slots or where player-player competition is the main plotline but I do like "crossover with a twist" so a lot of these are pretty cool ideas. I can't really choose a favourite but I'd show interest in almost all of them.

I like the contest of champions one.

Beacon City was also fun.

edited 29th Jul '15 6:25:21 AM by Locoman

To Boldly Go and Beacon City sounds like fun, though Im all for other ideas as well.

So far the votes go:

• To Boldly Go: 8
• Mix C/S: 5
• Console Wars: 1
• Movie Studio: 1
• Battle of the Bands: 4
• Superheroes vs Real People: 1
• Crossover Secret Agency: 6
• Beacon City: 6
• Mad Max: 3
• Si Vis Votum: 1
• After the Crossover: 2
• Work Com: 1
• Contest of Champions: 2
• 80's League: 1

As it stands, the most voted ones include To Boldly Go, Mix C/S, Battle of the Bands, Crossover Secret Agency and Beacon City.

Let me expand on each of these R Ps.

• To Boldly Go
  • I think the original RP kinda failed because the thing about Star Trek is that most of the time, only a small faction of crew members are doing something. It's either Kirk and Spock and Bones plus someone else, never the entire crew. They're almost always on the background. I also wanted to expand the TB Gverse by adding in the Star Wars element. Basically, this is an universe where the 'Empire' has been in action for a long time- I call it the Empire, but I don't see them as all-evil British people like Star Wars, more of a 'good idea' gone bad- and now there's a Rebel alliance slowly being created.
  • Of course, so as not to keep people confined to one thing or the other, I thought it'd be nice to maybe have more than just the Empire and the Rebels. Have independent factions, cut-off nations, other Empires being formed, stuff like that. So you could have the Jedi as a faction, for example, although it wouldn't be the Jedi from Star Wars. Like To Boldly Go, I'd start with an empty slate and as players make their sheets new things are added to this universe.
  • My other idea with the Empire is that it's the Bigger Bad. In other words, there are smaller empires all across the galaxy, but they all respond to the big bad that is the Big Empire. So if I live in the planet or Furnuzzle and it's controlled by the Gulliver Empire, even if I defeat the Gulliver Empire there's still the Bigger Empire that the Gullivers answered to. Imagine that the Empire is more of a coalition than a singular group, led by a council. And players on the Empire side could be captains of their own ships, or stormtroopers, who knows. We'll see where that goes.
  • In terms of the Rebels, since the idea of a full on Rebel Alliance is still new, everyone can join. Everyone from your pirate with a golden heart to a criminal who's hunted across the galaxy and thinks that if the Empire falls, so does the bounty on his head. So the Rebels are not the good guys you expect them to be. Might even have one or two people willing to help the Rebels only to vacate a spot in the Empire that they can fill.

• Mix Character and Setting
  • This one is pretty straightforward: take a character and drop him/her/it on a setting. I don't know where it would go after that, which is a big problem. I don't want it to be another 'characters from across the multiverse on big mission' RP, so I'm cracking my head trying to come up with the concept.

• Battle of the Bands
  • Someone asked how you would translate this into a RP. Well, imagine that instead of 'defeat the bad guy' or 'save the multiverse' or 'invade this land', your missions were 'get your band into success', 'get into the prestige music conservatory', 'finish your short movie' or 'publish your book'. It's as Slice of Life as they come- only difference is that the characters are from existing stories re-adjusted to fit this slice of life universe. Of course, I'd be controlling plenty of NP Cs, from studio execs to famous artists to teachers to rival bands to bar owners.

• Crossover Secret Agency
  • The synopsis I gave on the OP is pretty spot on. I'm developing the NP Cs and some of the missions, but the cool thing is that it's pretty easy for a player to GM a mission. All you need is some big situation that requires outside intervention. And the cool thing is that you could have groups of agents sent in separate missions, so there can be more than one 'challenge' going on at the same time. As for the tone I'm going for, it's the same tone of an action movie. Not that comedic, but also not so dark that you want to hang yourself after watching the movie.

• Beacon City
  • I guess the reason this one failed was a lack of overarching plotline. Not much to change about it?

The agency one sounds cool. So would it take place on canon settings, but behind the scenes? Like destroying a secret HK facility during the Galactic Empire era in Star Wars?

For the agency, would there be any restrictions on who we can use, beyond typical power level stuff? If I, say, wanted to sign up as a villain, would that be allowed?